Once again, I’m hung up on meatballs. Ever since my last post on them, I’ve wanted nothing more than a giant meatball sub, dripping in sauce and cheese. Unfortunately, the only place to get one around my house is at Subway. For some reason, their meatballs have never agreed with me, which is odd because I LOVE Subway. I could eat their roast beef with BBQ sauce, or a pizza sub with extra extra extra peppers and olives, every single day. Their meatballs, though? My body just won’t accept them as food.

So, I’ve been looking at more meatball recipes. I’m hoping that, in the coming weeks, I’ll be able to make a big batch of meatballs and proceed to devour them. I’m talking meatballs on rice, spaghetti and meatballs, meatball subs, and even meatballs on those tiny little cocktail swords my grandma never let us play with on New Years as kids.

So anyway, here is a great recipe I intend on trying from AllRecipes. This is just a basic meatball and tomato sauce, which gives you room for lots of creativity.

Ingredients

8 h 20 m

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

1 1/4 cups Italian seasoned bread crumbs

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

1 egg, beaten

28 ounces Classico® Tomato and Basil Sauce

1 (16 ounce) can crushed tomatoes

1 (14.25 ounce) can tomato puree

Directions

Prep 20 m

Cook 8 h

Ready In 8 h 20 m

In a bowl, mix the ground beef, bread crumbs, parsley, garlic, onion, and egg. Shape the mixture into 16 meatballs.

In a slow cooker, mix the pasta sauce, crushed tomatoes, and tomato puree. Place the meatballs into the sauce mixture. Cook on Low for 6 to 8 hours.

Again, this is just a basic recipe that’s easy yet delicious. This time, instead of baking the meatballs so they get that crispiness to them on the outside, these are just cooked entirely in the slow cooker. That makes these meatballs great for things like sandwiches, but not so great for poking with small swords.

Now, you don’t have to use the Classico sauce used above. There are about 30 different flavours of tomato sauce available in any large grocery store. And you can always make your own, too. I like to get large bottles of tomato puree, or plain sauce. This way, I can season it with whatever I like. I like to add oregano and rosemary for an Italian sauce, or some Sriracha sauce and cayenne pepper for a bit of a kick. Or, you can just add all of that together for a spicy Italian tomato sauce. This is great for spicy subs!

You can also add more to this recipe if you want, too. As you know, I like to pretend to be healthy, so I add veggies to pretty much everything I cook. Sliced or canned mushrooms and diced green peppers are a fantastic addition to any tomato sauce. Get creative, throw you favourite veggies in, or a spice you really love. Half the fun of basic recipe is making it your own, sunshine.